KEY POINTS:
National leader John Key says if he becomes prime minister the long term unemployed will have to be looking for work, in training, or working for the dole.
In notes for a speech to be given to the Burnside Rugby Club in Christchurch today, Mr Key played heavily on his rise to wealth after being brought up in a state house by a single mother.
Mr Key said the welfare system would always remain as a safety net, but his party believed in individual opportunity and responsibility.
Long term welfare dependency was creating an underclass in New Zealand which was seeing people in some families and areas doomed never to rise above the problems they faced, he said.
"We have to ensure that Kiwis, even those with relatively low skills, are always better off working than being on a benefit.
"We have to insist that healthy people receiving assistance from the State have obligations, whether that be looking for work, acquiring new skills for work, or working in their community."
Mr Key said it was unacceptable that some areas were terrorised by youth gangs, but the solution did not lie in "just throwing more money at the problem".
He attacked Labour for funding small pilot programmes and setting up committees to make it look like it was doing something.
National would see that more welfare money went to private businesses and community organisations to tackle the multiple problems that were interconnected with long term welfare dependency.
"A National government will challenge the business community to work with us in backing a programme of providing food in low-decile schools for kids in need," Mr Key said.
Mr Key's first major speech of 2007 was moved from his predecessor's Don Brash's usual venue of Orewa, north of Auckland, to near where he was raised in Christchurch as part of his move to distance himself from Dr Brash.
Mr Key's opponents believe that National in government would return to the harsh welfare policies of the early 1990s as was partly advocated by Dr Brash.
In his speech today, Mr Key repeated pledges that the welfare state would remain intact
"We should be proud to be a country that looks after its most vulnerable citizens. We should be proud to be a country that supports people when they can't find work, are ill, or aren't able to work.
"But we should be ashamed that others remain on a benefit for years even though work is available to them. That is no way forward for them and it is no way forward for New Zealand."
Mr Key also promised better education standards for school-leavers and more effective policing.
"Under a National government, gangs will not be controlling neighbourhoods so posties can't even deliver the daily mail."
He also pledged that there would be no parole for repeat violent offenders.
"We will do more than that to improve our criminal justice system, but for today let me send the clearest of messages. Those who break the laws of our society destroy the fabric of The Kiwi Way. No government I lead will put up with that."
- NZPA
